Light
by cywol
Summary: In that hospital, Joel sees clearly at last. A small fic about the end of the game. Rating is for references to typical Last of Us violence. Full canon knowledge assumed.


The light burns in front of Joel's eyes. It's little more than a glimmer – a tiny spot in his field of vision – but he knows that even if he blinks, it will not go away. It's dim, but it is something which gives him focus, something which makes him drag his tired limbs onward to further trials.

The soldiers are good, but they are still just humans. They have not lived as he has, or travelled as far as he has travelled through abyssal shadows. The light shows him the way to defeat them, his weapons feeling like extensions of his self, each merely an aspect of the new power which he finds he commands. Soon, the air tastes of iron and he can sense the mounting fear of his adversaries on the back of his neck. He does not hesitate as he kills them, pausing only when the corridors are ablaze, gunfire has scarred the walls, and their corpses are scattered across the floors. The bodies are different, but each has the same bewildered, uncomprehending expression etched into its face.

When he realises that it is done, he leaves the first floor swiftly behind, with not a thought. The light has shown his body and mind to a place of absolute stillness and mutual harmony: he cannot be slowed by his conscience, cannot listen to his demons for now. The light has called him, and he must become a demon himself, for a while.

They have dared to take her. The stairs pass by in a rush of sterile white, and he has reached the second level. There are more soldiers, but he does not hear the words that they shout or see their faces as they fall. In the early days of the plague, the doomsayers cried that it was God's judgment upon man; that the end of the world had arrived, and that there was nothing that could be done to stop it. Within the walls of the hospital, Joel loses himself, becoming a judgment all of his own. He is wrath incarnate, an unstoppable force which sweeps aside all which would stand in its way. If this is God's judgment upon Ellie, then he will shatter the gates of heaven.

Bullet-wounds tug at his body, but he does not fall. The pain only serves to crystallise his understanding of what he has to do. Wrath is untouchable. Wrath is immortal.

He reaches the surgery, and sees her at last. As the doctors shout and scream, he pays them no heed. Before long, they have gone the way of the soldiers, pushed into the periphery along with the other shadows of the past. As he gathers her into his arms, clutching her to his chest, he realises again just how small she is, and how fragile. She is not like him, at least not in that moment. She is so much less than the force which he has become, but at the same time infinitely more.

Because she has brought him here. She is all aglow; the source of the light within which he has found such clarity of purpose. Ultimately, the judgment which has swept through the hospital of the Fireflies is not his; it is hers, though she does not know it.

He does not remember very much of what happens in the aftermath. Soon, they are driving, the dusky amber light of an evening sun making the windscreen shine like burnished bronze. She is sleeping in the backseat, the hospital gown still draped across her slow-breathing form. The road is long, and empty, so he glances over his shoulder frequently, making sure that she is still safe, reassuring himself that she is still alive. The world is quiet, and she is slumbering peacefully. For a while, it does not feel like twenty years have passed. He hopes that he will still hear the sound of her breathing, even when another twenty have come and gone.

He keeps the wheel straight, and looks ahead. The wrath has faded, and there is no pain. There is no regret. He knows what it is that he feels then, but it is still a hard thing to say, even after all these years.

"We're going home," he says instead, hearing the hoarseness in his own voice.

When he looks over his shoulder again, she is smiling faintly in her sleep, and he knows that she understands.


End file.
